Blogs

Jeter's Next Big Swing

"I don't miss playings," says the retired Yankee, as the press-shy captain leads website The Players' Tribune, where DeAndre Jordan and Tiger Woods break news (sorry, ESPN) and backers are betting on a media home run

Daily PDF

Two players were banned from the 2012 Summer Games for offensive tweets, and a U.K. teenager was arrested for making threats after a diver finished fourth.

Watching Twitter watch the Olympics has become a spectator sport in its own right. From multiple athletes losing their spots over racist tweets to a U.K. teenager’s arrest for making threats over Twitter, there's been nearly as much drama online as in the Games proper.

In no particular order, here are 10 of the most remarkable Twitter controversies surrounding the 2012 Summer Games.

1. Gabby Douglas' Hair

Sixteen-year-old Gabby Douglas helped bring home the first gold for Team USA’s women’s gymnastic team since 1996. But it was her hair -- not her talent -- that some Twitter commentators took note of. Her gelled ponytail, it seemed, wasn't neat-looking enough for them.

The 23-year-old Greek triple-jumper didn’t even make it to the Games. After the emergence of West Nile Virus-carrying mosquitos in Greece, she tweeted, “With so many Africans in Greece, the West Nile mosquitos will be gettin' some home cookin'!"

She was booted from the team, and in her most recent, apologized to her family and coach. “My dream is connected to the Olympic Games and I could not possibly participate if I did not respect their values,” she wrote. “Therefore, I could never believe in discrimination between human beings and races."

Twitter banished Guy Adams, an L.A.-based editor for The Independent, after a barrage of tweets in which he was critical of NBC’s coverage of the Games. The straw that broke the camel’s back came when Adams tweeted the email address of NBC executiveGary Zenkel, and encouraged people to contact him. Adams’ account was later reinstated, after much public outcry.

Voula Papachristou, 23, became the second athlete to be removed from an Olympic team after a tweet. The multi-lingual player was upset after a loss to the South Korean team, and tweeted South Koreans "can go burn" and called them a "bunch of mongoloids." While widely condemned, some debated whether it was a racist tweet, or simply rude.

Insulting or rude, yes, but how is this tweet 'racist'?: ANOTHER Olympic Athlete Has Been Banned For A Racist Tweet read.bi/M5CInG

At July 28’s men’s road bicycle race, all of the tweeters lining the streets actually disrupted the bandwidth officials needed to report times to TV viewers. Olympic officials were later forced to beg bystanders not to tweet or send text messages unless they were urgent.

"It's just, if it's not an urgent, urgent one, please kind of take it easy,” an official said." We don't want people to stop engaging in social media, but we are asking to see if people can send by other means."

9. U.K. Teenager Arrested for Threatening Tweets

British Olympic diver Tom Daley fell victim to increasingly threatening tweets from a British teenager, who was angry the athlete had placed fourth in synchronized diving.

The tweet proved particularly tasteless, as Daley’s father had actually died of brain cancer a year earlier. The diver wanted to win a medal to honor his father’s memory. The teenager apologized, but then got more aggressive as others (including Olympians) came to Daley’s defense:

Police arrested the teenager July 28, and he re-emerged on Twitter Tuesday, declaring “I’m f---in’ back.”

10. #NBCfail

It didn’t take long for the hashtag #nbcfail to catch on, as fans and critics took to Twitter to express their displeasure over tape-delays, spoilers and nearly anything else related to the network’s coverage. What’s more, parody accounts such as @NBCDelayed have popped up, tweeting comically delayed breaking news such as: